Spiritual Strength

I’ve written over 1,000 posts on this blog and feel that I’m barely scratching the surface. I feel very unqualified to write about spiritual life. People tell me I’m not very “spiritual.” I see their point. I have a lot of qualities I’m not proud of: I’m easily given to anger. I’m not above pride or ego. As far as lust and greed, I’m not immune to temptation.

Still, I feel it’s somehow my duty to remember the teachings of my Guru Mahārāja and to remind others.

We are supposed to take the guru’s instruction seriously. While some men constructed temples and built missions, my orders were different. Personally I was instructed by Śrīdhar Mahārāja to publish his books. I was to work with Goswāmī Mahārāja to promote his words as literature. As far as possible I have dedicated 30 years of my life to doing this. My blog is an extension of this work. People say that Śrīdhar Mahārāja is difficult to understand. I find his words and teachings to be very clear. But I have been asked again and again to explain some of his ideas and this blog is my humble attempt to do so to the best of my capacity. One of the main themes I see running through his teachings is the importance of having a deep reading.

Deep reading has not come easily to me. I had to re-educate myself on many levels to be able to publish Śrīdhar Mahārāja’s books. But I think it is possible, given proper adjustment and a certain amount of training, for anyone to read deeply.

Śrīla Prabhupāda insisted that we take the literal meaning, especially when reading the Bhagavad-Gita. He taught us Bhagavad-Gita As It Is. And yet he took 700 pages of commentary to explain 700 verses. Even while defending literal interpretation he framed his argument in thousands of words.

I think some flexibility must be required, even when searching out the exact literal meaning of a text. This is because the texts themselves are esoteric; they are not for the uninitiated. Rupa Goswami was a great poet who could find several meanings in a single syllable of Sanskrit. How do we incorporate his perspective in our own reading?

This means that we prioritize our preaching; we do not insist on the number of wagonloads of hay it takes to get to the moon. Rather we are interested in the deep cosmology of the soul as represented by Sanātana Goswāmi in his description of the internal universe of Bṛhād-Bhagavāmṛta.

Even so, sometimes it’s hard to sit behind a laptop in a tiny room and crank out blogposts on Bhagavat cosmology and ontology.

Sometimes my spiritual strength wavers. Over the last two weeks there were three major hurricanes, wiping out parts of Mexico, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rica. Three major earthquakes hit Mexico, in Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Mexico City, creating a national disaster here. In the little town where I work and teach, San Miguel de Allende, it has been raining continuously for the last 2 weeks. If earthquakes and hurricanes weren’t enough, I suffered a personal loss with the death of an old friend and had to attend a funeral. Meanwhile heads of states are busy testing Hydrogen bombs and preparing end-of-the-world scenarios.

I had planned to continue writing about the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. I still plan to do this, but sometimes I need to catch my breath.

I write these reflections in the hopes that they may be useful to you dear reader. If you find anything worth while in what you see here, please pray for my soul.

Humbly,

Mahayogi.